THE JUNGLE PRINCESS (1936)

Chalk up another one to my ongoing quest to see every jungle girl movie ever made, even the crappy ones. Fortunately for me, this was one of the good ones.

Even though the infamous Hays Code served as Hollywood's stringent organ of self-censorship during much of American cinema's Golden Age, every now and then a movie with what would have then been termed "risque" material managed to sneak past the precursors of today's MPAA and such a film was THE JUNGLE PRINCESS. Though often listed as the debut film of legendary sarong-goddess and frequent collaborator with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in the famed ROAD TO (fill in the blank) movies, Dorothy Lamour, the truth is that she'd been kicking around Tinseltown for a few years in bit parts and this movie was her big break. Looking at it even from a distance of seventy-plus years it's easy to see why Lamour became a star overnight after this one.

Overnight sensation Dorthy Lamour as "jungle princess" Ulah.

The story opens with a cute little girl of about four years old spear-fishing in a stream, her only companion an equally cute tiger cub. Before you get into an uproar over this being one of those "tigers...in Africa???" movies, it's soon made clear we're in Malaysia, which also serves to explain how the darkened-up little actress isn't a Negro (not even one of the familiar cork-blackened Hollywood variety). About two minutes into things the poor tyke's village is utterly decimated, trampled into the ground by an inexplicably pissed-off herd of elephants, leaving the girl an orphan, and when the narrative picks up again it's years later and a bunch of "great white hunter" types — British, natch — find themselves in Malaysia for reasons largely irrelevant to the story's main thrust (so to speak), namely the capture of wild animals. We're told by the understandably annoyed native guide that several such attempts have been thwarted by "the tiger who laughs," a potentially dangerous local legend feared by the superstitious guides, porters, and hunters in the British party's employ.

One of the Brits, a very likable sort named Chris (a shockingly young Ray Milland, who would win a well-deserved Oscar for THE LOST WEEKEND nine years later), has no interest in capturing animals and is along for outdoorsy inspiration that will fuel the completion of the book he's working on. Also along for the ride is his spoiled and veddy British high society fiancee, Ava (Molly Lamont), whose father is the head of the expedition. Ava's instantly pegged by viewers as the real plot complication when she brattily rails against Chris' desire to stay behind and finish his book rather than leave for England and be her lap dog, so it's both a blessing and a curse when she fucks off out of the story for a good bit of the proceedings, thus allowing Chris to get jumped by a huge tiger and meet the beast's companion, Ulah (Lamour). Left for dead by the natives when the tiger — named Limao — showed up, Chris not-so-reluctantly finds himself in the tender and friendly care of Ulah, who of course takes quite a shine to the strange white man. Along with Limao and Ulah there's also a chimp who's the film's obvious knockoff of Cheeta from the concurrently-running Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan series, and once Chris joins them they all become one happy family in an idyllic jungle paradise.

As Chris acclimates himself with jungle fantasy living, Ulah, who has presumably had no contact with men other than those she harassed with the help of Limao, reveals a sexually aggressive streak that I can't believe got by the Hays people, especially since her behavior toward Chris leaves no doubt whatsoever as to her intentions. Chris, not being an idiot, cannot help but notice Ulah's advances and suffers the tortures of the damned as he agonizingly stays true to his fiancee despite his obvious (and quite understandable) growing affection for the saronged she-Tarzan. While Ava may be the model of upper-crust Britishness, Ulah's charms are many, including exotic beauty, a very sweet and rather girly nature despite her knack for unassisted survival (unless you count Limao, and I kinda do) in a tropical jungle, and an uninhibited kindness that's nothing short of infectious, and for Chris it's pretty much all over when she sings a song to him in Malay that is very obviously an impassioned love song. Unable to take it anymore, Chris quite unwillingly leaves Ulah and sets off to find his party, unaware that Ulah, Limao, and the chimp are hot on his heels. Needless to say, the shit hits the fan once the presumed-deceased Chris returns and is believed by the natives to be a ghost, followed by "the tiger who laughs" and his toothsome mistress, both of whom are perceived as evil forest spirits who must be killed. Then there's the matter of Ava, who's relieved to see Chris is alive and well...until she meets Ulah and knows she's been pretty much kicked to the curb, thus setting in motion a very much one-sided bit of romantic brinksmanship that forces Chris to wake up and fully acknowledge his feelings for Ulah. But just when you think all of this will be settled in a way reminiscent of some tired bedroom face, things get resolved in a violent native uprising that seems to have swung in from another film entirely, complete with shootings, stabbings, spearings, and Ulah being prepped for a pretty nasty bit of ritual sacrifice while the Brits await presumed execution.

Basically a distaff ripoff of a Weismuller-era Tarzan movie, THE JUNGLE PRINCESS is very charming and it's easy to see how its steamy parts made it a huge hit for Paramount. The chemistry between Lamour and Milland is far more engaging than a potboiler like this deserves, and Lamour is simply perfect as a loving and ultra-feminine schoolboy fantasy figure made flesh. Ulah is gorgeous, sweet, nurturing, fun and funny, and for all I know never has a period, so in short the perfect girl. All she wants to do is love up Chris, and I can only imagine what this movie would have been like if its torrid potential had been allowed to flower in full like the uncut version of the classic TARZAN AND HIS MATE (1934), a film neutered upon release by those Hays killjoys and restored decades later. As is, THE JUNGLE PRINCESS is romantic and lively, but the last quarter of the movie seems to be catering to the Tarzan crowd and not to those of us who by that point were more than hooked on the romantic mishegoss. For me the movie was really turned on its ear by the perfunctory action ending — an army of chimps and monkeys, seemingly hundreds of them, come to the rescue, stealing a page from the elephants at the end of most of the MGM Tarzan movies — a move that almost makes it feel like the movie was completed with the final reel of another film altogether.

'GATOR BAIT (1974)

No, that isn't Ben Affleck in drag.

I can’t believe it took me as long as it did to finally see the 1974 exploitation classic ‘GATOR BAIT, and I have to say I’m more than a little surprised by what it had to offer. The film’s rep rests squarely on the shoulders of its star, ill-fated Titian-tressed beauty Claudia Jennings, a former Playmate of the Year whose body of work lead her to being dubbed the “queen of the B’s,” and after sitting through one of her grindhouse epics it’s doubtful that she’d fade from the viewer’s memory any time soon.

Claudia Jennings: Can you say "Yowza?"

‘GATOR BAIT is a post-DELIVERANCE backwoods revenge pic that takes place deep in an unnamed bayou, a forbidding environment best avoided by those who don’t know its ways, and utterly at home in this seemingly limitless swamp is Desiree Thibodeau (Jennings), a barefoot Cajun trapper — in the skimpiest of outfits, including a pair of Daisy Dukes that pretty much doesn’t have an ass, and a potato sack blouse that allows occasional glimpses of her mouth-watering ninnies —who poaches the local wildlife to provide for herself and her younger brother and sister. Desiree’s activities are illegal but overlooked by the local sheriff who doesn’t care because her family has hunted the swamp for generations, so he figures she’s got the right by virtue of ancestral territory. Unfortunately his moron of a son, apparently the town’s only other cop, has other ideas, and along with a slow-witted hillbilly pal he lays in wait to catch Desiree in the act and offer her a choice of going to jail or fucking him and his buddy. The would-be sexual extortion goes terribly wrong, however, as Desiree eludes her pursuers after lobbing a bag full of venomous snakes onto their swamp boat; as the stupid cop shoots at the snakes, he blows holes into the boat’s hull, and shoots his homeboy in the head. Panicking, he returns to town and claims Desiree killed his friend, so the sheriff rounds up the dead guy’s outrageously inbred redneck relatives and sets off into the deep swamp to apprehend Desiree. Operating under the false impression that the poacher is a murderess, the rednecks can’t wait to get their hands on her, both to hand out their own brand of justice and get a piece of her “coon-ass.” (The Cajuns in the film are derogatorily referred to as “Coonies.")

That’s the setup, and from there viewers are taken deep into a swamp virtually untouched by man and made witness to a game of cat and mouse so overmatched that it’s like what would happen if a bunch of great white hunters had the incalculable stupidity to fuck with Tarzan on his own turf. Desiree may not have the jungle lord’s near-superhuman capabilities, but she’s plenty smart and knows her way through the bayou like it was the back of her own assless shorty-shorts, so it’s just a matter of time until she’s done killing those assholes one by one.

During the course of all of this we learn a lot about Desiree’s antagonists and swiftly realize just how vile and sleazy they are. The patriarch of the redneck family has a love/hate relationship with his sons, all of whom are at least mildly retarded or just plain mentally ill, and even disciplines the perpetually-horniest of his brood with a bullwhip when he catches the lad attempting to fuck his own very willing sister in the mud near where she was hanging the laundry. (Dad wasn’t all that pissed off about the boy wanting a piece of sis, but was seriously irked at the possibility of the voluptuous girl getting knocked up and squeezing out another dimwit.) The other redneck son holds a personal grudge against Desiree for having had the gall to cut off his balls years earlier when he tried and failed to rape her, and now wanders about with his sawed-off double-barreled shotgun serving as an ever-rigid and potent surrogate penis. And even the sheriff has a big secret: twelve years previous he’d had an affair with Desiree’s mom and “accidentally” murdered her father, a bit of information used by the rednecks as blackmail fodder, guaranteeing that their own illegal shenanigans go unchecked.

With all of this mishegoss going on there’s plenty of bad taste to go around, and once the hunt for Desiree gets underway things go from very bad to that much worse when, after searching for her home for days, the inbred posse locates the place just after our heroine has left on a three day hunting trip. The bad guys stage a home invasion that begins with them abusing Desiree’s tongueless little brother, and her nubile jailbait sister ends up in the lusty hands of the sheriff’s son and the two inbred brothers. As the two un-castrated men hold down the poor girl during the preamble to a gang rape, one of them tells the nutless wonder with the shotgun that he’s going to show him “how a real man does it;” that remark sends the castrato over the frustrated edge, so he throws his brother off of Desiree’s sister, stuffs his shotgun between her legs, and unloads both barrels, retorting “Is that manly enough fer ya?” The girl expires almost immediately, and the misogyny factor goes through the roof. No bullshit, when that bit of business happened I actually exclaimed “Oh my God!!!” and I’m pretty hard to shock. It’s not graphically depicted, but the idea alone really gets to you.

The odd thing about it is that such horrors were once commonplace in exploitation films, and yet, despite the many ultra-violent movies I’ve sat through over the decades, I still find myself jarred by such material. I can handle all manner of cinematic carnage, but the idea of some innocent girl — or any girl at all, for that matter — taking a shotgun blast to the cooter is a bit beyond the pale, so keep that bit in mind before sitting down to watch ‘GATOR BAIT with your girlfriend.

Which brings me to the oft-cited sentiment that ‘GATOR BAIT is one of many exploitation flicks held to be a feminist statement. Lemme tell ya, buddy, the makers of this film simply set out make a movie about a scantily clad hottie who kicks ass on the people who fucked with her and her family, but I strongly doubt that capital F feminism was intentionally involved in the creative process. Think about it: you have fine-ass Claudia Jennings, a woman for whom the wearing of clothing should have been a capital offense, traipsing about the fen in gear that shows off her priapism-inducing assets for all they’re worth, despite the fact that such gear is in no way conducive to the rigors of marshland hunting and trapping.

Desiree is not so much a feminist role model as she is a fantasy wild woman/jungle girl updated and transplanted to a sweltering southern bayou, and as a lifelong fan of such characters I have no problem with that. But don’t hand me that feminist over-analysis horseshit; Desiree’s a forest spirit fantasy made flesh — hell, she even looks like an anthropomorphic fox — and to say otherwise is a tad disingenuous.

Other than the surprisingly taut story, the true surprise about ‘GATOR BAIT is that considering its R rating and the presence of Jennings, the star doesn’t get naked at any point in the movie. Sure, we get tantalizing glimpses of her good stuff, but the requisite nudity for this type of flick falls to her nymphet sister who innocently strips out of her already-revealing shift and bathes in the river. That somewhat disappointed me because I’d seen provocative shots of Claudia Jennings in her Daisy Dukes and unbuttoned sleeveless shirt for over three decades, and expected the film to deliver what the ad campaign couldn’t.

But I wasn’t terribly pissed because she looked great throughout the movie, and sometimes titillation is better than in-your-face nekkidness, and the movie kind of reminded me of pinup art or Al Capp’s Wolf Gal.

Bottom line, ‘GATOR BAIT is definitely worth checking out, and is a lot better film than you’d expect from the “hicksploitation” genre, capably holding it’s own alongside the real heavy hitters of its ilk, namely DELIVERANCE and SOUTHERN COMFORT. It’s solid, down-home, grimy sleaze, and as such it works just fine. TRUST YER BUNCHE!!!

MACON COUNTY LINE (1974)

After having heard about how great MACON COUNTY LINE is and how it’s one of the undisputed classics of the 1970’s drive-in/”hicksploitation” genre, I finally saw it for myself and was quite surprised by a few things. First off, for years I was convinced that I’d seen it but I now realize I hadn’t, and in fact I think I confused it with one of its many subsequent imitators or fused it in my memories with some other bit of cornpone exploitation; the film I remember seeing opened just like MACON COUNTY LINE, specifically with the title being seen over a freeze-frame of a fleeing, bare-assed guy as Lavern Baker’s timeless rendition of “Jim Dandy” is heard on the soundtrack,

but for some reason I recall the version of “Jim Dandy” in the film I thought I saw as being the ultra-redneck cover done by Black Oak Arkansas. After that I just recall pretty much a feature length nighttime car chase down some backwater road featuring two scared-shitless fifties “J.D.” types pursued at high speed by a crazed sheriff who took potshots at them with a pump-action shotgun while his deputy handled the driving chores. I have no memory of why the cop was after the two teenagers, but there was definitely a sense that the cop was an insane control freak who had it in his head that those Yankee sunsabitches had done something out of line within his jurisdiction, and he simply wasn’t having it. That’s kinda/sorta the plot for MACON COUNTY LINE, but I enjoyed my garbled recollections more than the actual movie and am at a loss to explain why it’s considered a classic.

The film takes place in 1954 and introduces viewers to the Dixon brothers, Chris and Wayne (played by real-life sibs Alan and Jesse Vint), two rakehell lads who epitomize the old “free, white, and twenty-one” spirit of the pre-Civil Rights era, and drops us right into the tail end of their two-week spree of fun and pussy-hunting before they head off for military service. They’re about as likable as a pair of don’t-give-a-shit characters can be, but they both display a casual disregard for the law as evidenced by their gleeful tactics of dining and dashing, stealing money from a whore (after Chris fucks her while making her bark like a dog, easily the funniest scene in the movie), and evading two cops while simultaneously totaling their squad cars, as well as the revelation of being lifelong troublemakers and that their signing up for the military was the only option for Chris as an alternative to being sent up the river for a petty crime (we never know he’s found guilty of, but it’s alluded to that it may be statutory rape), thus Wayne joined up with him so his little brother won’t have to go it alone. During the course of their adventures they pick up blonde Texan hitchhiker Jenny (Cheryl Scott) and eventually cross the Macon County line from Louisiana into Georgia, thus setting up the tragedy to come.

Once in Georgia, the gang’s car suffers automotive distress and they pull over to a gas station in the middle of nowhere to get a new distributor cap. While waiting for the live action version of THE SIMPSONS’ Cletus the Slack-jawed Yokel to effect repairs, they meet walking NRA advertisement and control freak Sheriff Reed Morgan, played by Max Baer, Jr., best known for his immortal portrayal of eternally sunny and rather dim Jethro Beaudine on THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES television series (1962-1971). The sheriff, always polite but betraying a hint of ominous menace, questions the unfamiliar trio, demanding to see identification and informing them that unless they have thirty bucks between them they’ll be considered vagrants. Having made his point — a display of territorial pissing if ever there was one — the sheriff drives off to pick up his ten-year-old son (Leif Garrett) from military school, unaware that two petty criminals have broken into his house, stolen assorted property, and raped and murdered his adoring wife (Joan Blackman). The crooks get pulled over by some other local cops, and once the stolen loot is noticed in the back seat the situation escalates into a double cop-killing, but the criminals are eventually captured. Meanwhile, our heroes have once more hit the road, but their car once more breaks down, forcing the trio to camp out…just across the way from Sheriff Morgan’s house, right when he arrives home to discover his wife’s bloody corpse. The sheriff and his son both lose it, the kid collapsing into a weepy, catatonic state, while his father spies the trio’s car and incorrectly assumes they’re the culprits. Arming himself to the teeth, the sheriff goes after the trio with guns a-blazin’, and the whole mess culminates with a pile of bodies and a terrific twist that comes seemingly from out of nowhere.

When taken at face value, MACON COUNTY LINE reads like a tense, suspenseful cautionary tale about being in absolutely the wrong place at absolutely the wrong time, but the actual film comes up lacking for a number of reasons:

• The movie clocks in at 88 minutes and the actual conflict between the sheriff and the innocent travelers doesn’t actually occur until roughly the last twenty minutes, by which time I had checked my watch more than once. And when the shit finally does go down, there’s no chase since the trio’s car has broken down; the trio holes up in an empty houseboat, so they’re stuck there waiting for the sheriff to pick them off.

• There were several times when I found myself wondering if the movie even had an editor; during the film’s 88 minutes, much of the running time is spent on endless sequences meant to drive home a feeling of local color but those segments just drag on interminably, and the attempts at humor lay there like a dead raccoon. Except for the bit with the barking whore.

• The heroes’ mischievous nature is meant to be endearing, but their assholish and potentially dangerous behavior toward others was off-putting. The only reason I sympathized with them at all during the sheriff’s crazed meltdown was because I knew they were innocent of the crime, and while they deserved some sort of comeuppance for their earlier transgressions, they certainly didn’t warrant cold-blooded execution at the hands of Jethro Beaudine.

• The wholly gratuitous sex scene between Chris and Jenny brings the movie to a complete halt and does nothing whatsoever to advance the plot, offering a small helping of the nudity that was more or less mandatory for exploitation fare of the period. You simply will not care when the sequence begins, and may even fast-forward through it like I did.

• While we come to know and like the Dixon brothers as a kind of lower-rent Duke Boys (only minus the bows-and-arrows and the General Lee), Jenny is a cipher of a character who’s there only so there can be a female among the heroes, and a female that you just know will eventually get naked for reasons previously discussed. I found her utterly superfluous to the story and genuinely feel the film would have benefited immensely from her total non-inclusion; the only suspense that Jenny’s presence could have generated would have been the possibility of her getting raped by the crazed sheriff, but while he was crazed over the death of his wife, he wasn’t that crazy. That particular female element in hicksploitation would later be famously immortalized in the far superior JACKSON COUNTY JAIL (1976).

But while I found MACON COUNTY LINE to be a vastly overrated disappointment, I was intrigued by Max Baer, Jr’s portrayal of Sheriff Morgan. In sequences not dealing with his harassment of the innocent trio, Morgan is seen as a devoted family man who has a friendly rapport with the citizens of his town, and longs for nothing more than to spend quality time with his son. Far from the psycho cop he’s often described as, Morgan is all too understandably human, control freak flaws and all, and I found it impossible to hate the guy, even when it’s revealed that he’d rather his son not associate with the black kids who play basketball across the street from the military school; Morgan’s racism comes across not as the stereotypical burning hatred usually found in a southern-fried exploitation flick, but rather as the result of being a product of his time, culture, and the accepted status quo. His explanation of his views on the subject to his son is more segregationist than flagrant “lynch them goddamned niggers” bigotry, and considering the tropes common to this genre that comes as a surprise since exploitation filmmakers certainly never had any problem with creating outright, moustache-twirling villains of the vilest order; the quintessential example of a balls-out psychotic racist asshole villain would undoubtedly be William Sanderson’s incredible Jesse Lee Kane in FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE (1977), and when compared to him Sheriff Morgan is certainly no villain. A hardassed control freak driven to violence by irrational grief, yes, but a villain per se? I don’t think so.

There’s been a lot of misleading stuff written about MACON COUNTY LINE over the years that paints the film as considerably more than it is, and as a curious student of the grindhouse/drive-in genre you may be intrigued by its rep, but bear in mind that much of its legend may be heavily colored by fond nostalgia, and that’s why the ready availability of such oft-cited “classics” on DVD can be the genre’s own worst enemy. Seeing is definitely not always believing, so TRUST YER BUNCHE and approach this one with no expectations if you feel you absolutely must see one of the perceived landmarks of hicksploitation pantheon.

Poster from the original theatrical release.

BEN-HUR (1959)

Your eyes are full of hate, Forty-one. That’s good. Hate keeps a man alive. It gives him strength.
-Roman Consul Quintus Arrius, to a seriously pissed-off Judah Ben-Hur.

Awesome, a word oft bandied about with little consideration for what it actually means and frequently applied to movies of dubious quality such as INDEPENDENCE DAY, TRANSFORMERS and the loathsome ARMAGEDDON. Well lemme tell ya, bunkie, you ain’t seen awesome until you’ve seen William Wyler’s 1959 epic-to-end-all-epics, the truly motherfucking awesome BEN-HUR. There were cinematic epics before and after BEN-HUR, including a silent version of the same story, but none of them stands as prominently in the hearts and minds of movie-lovers as this Charlton Heston landmark of widescreen spectacle. I’m a huge fan of the historical/biblical epic genre and while I favor Cecil B. DeMille’s eye-popping and mind-blowing THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956), I am only a certain type of hair away from ranking BEN-HUR as Number One in the field (with SPARTACUS coming in as a close third). Believe me, I totally understand the point of view of those who hold it as the end-all, be-all of the form, and I understand it more fully after having had the pleasure of seeing it projected at Lincoln Center with my Marvel Bullpen brother and dear friend Big Black Paul, a lover of classic cinema whose encyclopedic knowledge of movies far eclipses my own.

For those of you who somehow managed to miss it, BEN-HUR (subtitled “A Story of the Christ”) begins some twenty-six years after the birth of Jesus (which we witness during a pre-credits sequence) with the arrival of Messala (Stephen Boyd), the new Roman tribune of Jerusalem, at his new post. Assigned to quell the local dissidents — especially some pain-in-the-ass carpenter — Messala seeks the aid of his boyhood friend, wealthy merchant and local nobleman Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston in all his tooth-clenching, nostril-flaring glory).

A joyous reunion, soon to turn bitter.

The two meet with joy, but their happiness turns sour when Ben-Hur flat out refuses to betray his own people and fink on those who oppose the Empire’s stranglehold on Judea for the sake of Messala’s political career. The refusal shocks, disappoints and angers Messala, him having counted on unquestioning support from his former best friend and all (it’s also quite clearly alluded to that Messala considers his feelings for Ben-Hur to be a case of “unrequited love;” you could get away with such stuff back in the days, but you couldn’t have Messala plainly state, “Hey, Judah…Ever thought about riding me like the camel you always wanted for Hanukkah?”), so when an unfortunate accident nearly kills the Roman governor during a parade, Messala seizes the opportunity and has Ben-Hur and his family (his mom and sister, to be specific) arrested and thrown in jail, intending to make an example of Ben-Hur by proving he’s gotta be a hard-assed bastard if he’s willing to destroy the life of a close friend, thus scaring the locals into being good little Red Sea Pedestrians.

Ben-Hur’s life turns into a shitstorm of outright misery and awfulness as he’s sentenced to life as an oarsman on a Roman warship, a fate from which people simply do not return, but he vows to Messala’s face (through that famous snarl and gritted choppers) that he’s not only gonna return, but he’s also gonna hand Messala the ass-whuppin’ to end all ass-whuppin’s, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the movies it’s that if Charlton Heston expresses a desire to fuck you up, you’d damned well better dig a ditch and get the hell in. Messala however, not being around during an era that had the movies, did not learn this valuable life lesson, so he arrogantly waves Judah goodbye and sends him of to his considerably more than three-hour tour. But while making the tortuous march through the desert to the ship, Ben-Hur nearly succumbs to exhaustion and thirst and is shown kindness and given a drink of water by some unknown longhair in a dress whose face we never see, but we do hear a lot of “Aaaah aaaah aaaaah” churchy music, so it’s obvious that it’s the good ol’ Nazarene. In fact, J.C.’s so cool that he even scares off a whip-wielding centurion just by looking at the guy (that scene always cracks me up and comes off like a tough guy stare-down at a Fear show)!

"Don't make me break my foot off in your Roman ass!"

Anyway, that dose of water — presumably infused with some of the Holy Spirit — rejuvenates Ben-Hur and gives him the strength to live, allowing him to survive and grow strong through over three years of rowing as a galley slave (although I very much doubt the Prince of Peace would have been down with Ben-Hur carrying on solely so he could eventually plant his size thirteen sandal straight up a Roman pretty boy’s tuchas).

A man kept alive by hate.

Ben-Hur’s fortunes take a turn for the better when command of the ship he’s on is turned over to Quintus Arrius (Jack Hawkins), a high-ranking Roman military officer and veteran of more battles than any man should have to endure, now assigned to rout the seaways of some pesky Macedonian pirates. Arrius takes note of Ben-Hur’s practically radioactive hatred and force of will and offers to free him in exchange for gladiatorial training — the one thing, short of Ben-Hur engaging in mortal combat with a giant monster and using only his dick as a weapon, that could possibly have made this movie any better — but Ben-Hur opts against it in favor of his belief that he’ll eventually get free and gain his revenge. That moment comes when the Roman fleet and the pirates have a kickass and ultra-violent sea battle — we actually see Ben-Hur set a guy’s head on fire, for fuck’s sake! — during which our hero saves Arrius’ life. Arrius returns to Rome with a spectacular victory and, being a stand-up guy who doesn’t forget a favor, publicly adopts Ben-Hur as his heir.

Arrius shows his gratitude.

During his time in Rome Ben-Hur becomes a champion charioteer in the Circus Maximus (which we are told about rather than shown; I guess the movie was long enough already), but he must fulfill his quest and while on his way home he runs into Arab sheik Ilderim (Hugh Griffith, in a deservedly Oscar-winning role), a nomadic racing nut who owns a quartet of the most gorgeous horses you will ever see, and the two become pals when Ben-Hur offers his experienced eye in giving the sheik tips on how to maximize his horses’ racing potential. The sheik pleads with our hero to drive his team to victor in Rome, but Ben-Hur declines the offer in favor of finding out if his mother and sister are still alive, even after discovering he’d be racing against that douchebag Messala; the setup is simply perfect since during the race just about any amount of foul play and violence can be gotten away with, but our hero just has to find his folks.

Ben-Hur returns to Jerusalem, nearly giving Messala a heart attack when he strolls in looking like a million bucks after what was intended to be a death sentence, and demands to know the whereabouts of his family when he returns the next day (you’ve gotta see Messala during this bit; I kept looking to the floor for a golden puddle beneath his toga). His family is indeed alive, but they’d been forgotten for years and the filthy conditions of their tiny cell have caused them to contract leprosy. Rather than have him see them in such a wretched state, his mom and sis swear Ben-Hur’s “who cares” love interest, Esther (Haya Harareet), to silence as they leave to take up residence in the Valley of the Lepers. Esther tells Ben-Hur they’re dead, so he sets off to Rome to take part in one of the most awesome (the term being properly used here) sequences in the entire history of world cinema, the Great Chariot Race, and finally exact his long-in-coming and hard-earned vengeance.

Messala versus Ben-Hur: it gets no more personal than this, kids.

It at this point that the movie just plain goes completely berserk and the chariot race will blow your fucking mind, no two ways about it. In fact all of the genuinely spectacular stuff that litters the flick from start to finish is a visual smorgasbord, and you won’t be bored by any of it. Also in fact, this film is probably right at the top of the heap of flicks that proudly show just how little CGI really adds to contemporary movies. Other than a few matte paintings and a little bit of blue screen work, what you see onscreen is the physically extant performance of actual human beings, both actors and cinematic craftsmen, that brings the ancient world to completely believable and teeming life, and the scenes of marching troops and thronging crowds were real people, the audience for the chariot race including some eight-thousand (!!!) extras. That, along with its strong narrative, is what I mean by awesome, and if you ever get the chance to see BEN-HUR on the big screen you should under no circumstances miss its myriad wonders.

The Circus Maximus: eight-thousand extras, no bullshit.

The grandeur of Rome: the soldiers keep marching, and marching, and marching...

But there’s an interesting thing about this film, and that’s its stated purpose as a “story of the Christ.” When you get right down to brass tacks, it’s the story of one man’s burning hatred and his desire for vengeance against his former best friend, an extremely personal revenge story loaded with highly entertaining action and violence, and Jesus is almost an afterthought. Sure, his gift of water gives Ben-Hur the will to go on, which, if truth be told, is completely necessary for the plot, but after that J.C. is really only there to be sought by one of the wise men who attended the Nativity. Said wise man, Balthasar (Finlay Currie), runs into Ben-Hur a few times and tries to get him to listen to Jesus and put aside his need for violence, so I guess that small bit of good values is how they got away with so much in this film in 1959. It always felt to me that after the climax of the chariot race the film’s true narrative thrust is over and done, but the movie goes on for about another half hour as Ben-Hur finds his family aren’t dead and he and Esther try to get them to Jesus, only to arrive as he’s on his way to the crucifixion. Of course there’s the expected miracle cure for leprosy and happy endings all around, but it still feels to me like the filmmakers said, “Well, Messala’s dog food, so that’s that! Hey, wait a minute…. Oh, shit! Isn’t Jesus supposed to be in this movie? We’ve gotta shoot some more footage, pronto!”

Call me hard-hearted, but I never bought the romance between Ben-Hur and Esther, coming as it does from seemingly out of nowhere and evincing no trace of passion or chemistry whatsoever, nor did I care about Ben-Hur’s mom and sister; sure their being alive provides a feel-good ending, but to me this is all about the bitterness between Ben-Hur and Messala. But why am I splitting hairs? None of the classic epics are absolutely perfect and BEN–HUR is one of the true classics of cinema, so I should just shut the fuck up. TRUST YER BUNCHE and see this one for yourself. Seriously, it’s one of the all-time greats and your movie education is sorely lacking for not having experienced it.

THE BLONDE CAPTIVE (1931)

This long-lost documentary/exploitation flick is a real curiosity and a telling look at how the then-exotic could be sleazily manipulated into the most feeble of wank-fodder for the most pathetic of trenchcoat brigade desperadoes.

Basically a chronicle of an expedition to Australia in search of the reportedly still-extant Neanderthal man, the film follows a pack of white anthropologists/explorers as they tour through such stops as New Zealand and Pago Pago, capturing every bit of "strange" non-whiteness that wandered into camera range. I can imagine how bizarre much of this material must have seemed to American audiences when seen nearly eighty years ago and much of the narration is a litany of smug and offensive sneering at native ways of life. Denigrating aboriginal peoples as "the lowest rung on the ladder of humanity" and describing most of the females as ugly, undesirable and not worth the attention of the white man (I shit you not), the filmmakers nonetheless make sure to capture images of every flappy and un-PLAYBOY-like set of nekkid breasts that they can find. Believe me when I say that it's about as appealing or erotic as watching one's eighty-year-old mud-caked grandma running around topless, displaying swaying udders that resemble socks filled with ball bearings. There are exceptions to that assessment, however, specifically the very cute and very topless obvious jailbait found on Bali. When the camera finds them the viewer is "treated" to borderline-pedophilic leering at their impossibly firm dairies that may make your skin crawl due to the creepy defilement of the girls' other-cultural innocence and lack of inhibitions about their bodies.

As the "scientific" expedition makes its way west across the vast expanse of Australia, we witness a lot of very interesting footage of the aborigines and their daily life and customs, but a lot of what would otherwise be fascinating is rendered distasteful thanks to the aforementioned tendency of the narration to describe the people as everything just shy of "sub-human" and frequently make mention of their "cannibalistic instincts" that could at any minute be directed at the expedition's members. There's even a dance of friendship done in honor of the filmmakers that is written off as "savagely repulsive" and "barbaric," utterly missing the intent of the tribesmen who perform it.

The "barbaric" dance of friendship.

All of this is presented in a non-credible attempt to prove that the aborigines are actually Neanderthals who somehow eluded extinction, a theory whose only claim to feasibility stems from a museum bust of a caveman that kinda/sorta looks like an aborigine.

But lest we forget, this film is supposedly about a blonde captive of some native savage, so where the hell is she? The person in question does not show up until the last four minutes of the film's seventy-three-minute running time, and when we do see her she is neither a beauty nor what would really be considered a captive.

The filmmakers notice a blonde-haired boy among the aborigines and their questions about the child's origins are answered when they meet the kid's dad, an aborigine who took as his wife the shipwrecked wife of a deceased pearl fisherman. A textbook example of someone who's "gone native," the so-called captive resembled a mellow and topless female version of Jon Pertwee who seemed totally free to leave if she so chose.

The unnamed star of the film.

Her story is not particularly interesting, in fact I've seen documentaries about the unashamedly redneck locals of backwoods counties in West Virginia that blow THE BLONDE CAPTIVE out of the water, so, despite its (thankful) brevity, I say give this time capsule a miss. Even for the dirt-cheap price of $5.99, this isn't worth the expenditure. Buy a sixer of beer instead.

Art from the DVD release.

ATTACK OF THE 50-FOOT WOMAN (1958)

It’s funny how one’s perceptions change as one gets older.

I first saw the infamous ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN (1958) when I was about ten years old, already aware of its status as one of the supposedly worst films ever made, and at the time I couldn’t help but agree. The dialogue and acting were ludicrous and overwrought even by 1950’s B-movie standards, several scenes meant to take place at night were clearly shot in broad daylight — a “technique” made immortal in Ed Wood’s masterpiece, PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1959) — the special effects were the polar opposite of anything resembling special, and the awesome gigantress depicted on the poster didn’t go on a city-destroying orgy of destruction. In short, everything that your average kid would find disappointing in a giant-monster-on-the-loose flick.

A blatant example of false advertising.

The film continues to be maligned to this day and in many ways deserves the derision so gleefully heaped upon it for nearly half a century, but having just seen it again last weekend for the first time in over thirty years I have to say that my adult tastes have caught up with its cheapjack charms. I fucking love bad movies, and in every way ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN stands as one of the more intriguing examples of the whole misbegotten genre.

Kind of a WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLFE? by way of THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN, the story revolves around boozy heiress Nancy (Allison Hayes) and her flagrant failure of a marriage to equally boozy adulterous douchebag Harry Archer (William Hudson), a nonchalant heel who’s only in it for access to the wife’s fortune. Apparently Nancy's had a history of psychological problems and has recently returned from a stint in the local rubber room, supposedly okay enough to function in society but still a bit nutso around the edges. Her shaky mental state isn't helped in the least by her constant 1950’s-style drunkenness, or her husband’s totally in-her-face affair with the town pump, the gloriously sleazy Honey Parker, played to fantastic bad-girl extremes by the too-hot-to-handle Yvette Vickers.

Honey and Harry, vile 1950's adulterers and gold-diggers of the lowest order.

Harry’s such a prick that he hangs out with Honey in an open booth at Tony’s — apparently the town’s only bar & grill — all the while guzzling from highball glasses brimming with scotch and engaging in public lip-locks that look like the two of them are trying to suck each other’s innards up their necks.

It’s pretty smarmy stuff for the fifties and is still rather torrid even by today’s standards, evoking the feel of cheap bus station pulp fiction paperbacks replete with tough guys getting it on in smoky hotel rooms with easy floozies (an ambiance augmented by a great score that knows when to turn on the swelter).

One night while driving aimlessly (and kind of bombed) about some back roads, Nancy encounters a spherical spacecraft that houses a bald giant who makes a grab for her.

Eat your heart out, ILM!

The famously phony fake hand jiggles and wobbles as it attempts to pick her up, causing Nancy to shriek, abandon her car, and haul ass straight into town. When she arrives she seeks out Harry, but he’s too busy getting a bit of stink-finger so he asks the sheriff’s deputy to cover for him, saying that he wasn’t at Tony’s. An hysterical Nancy then convinces the cops to drive her back to the site of her close encounter, but when they get to her abandoned car there’s no trace whatsoever of a five-story Telly Savalas. Pissed that the cops don’t believe her, Nancy returns home to find comfort in good old booze.

When Harry finally returns home Nancy confronts him about where the fuck he was when she was freaking out, but he simply pours himself a drink, lies about his whereabouts, and slips her a sedative. The drug acts swiftly, coupled as it is with about three stiff drinks, and in no time Nancy’s about to pass out. Harry carries her up the stairs and puts her to bed, undressing her and tucking her in while her altered state of consciousness allows the deep hurt that she feels to roll forth undisguised by anger or false bravado, revealing a wounded and vulnerable woman who admits that she desperately needs Harry. As she fades into unconsciousness, his name pathetically on her lips, he removes her lightbulb-sized diamond, the Star of India, from around her neck, fondles it like it was his own nutsack, and drops it into his pocket. He then calls a doctor to evaluate Nancy’s mental state, the first step in having her re-committed, thereby gaining control of her wealth. After that Harry hightails it back to the bar to face the wrath of his mistress, a fit of pique that immediately cools once she sees the Star of India. The two then plot Nancy’s downfall in earnest before practically fucking the shit out of each other in their favorite booth.

The next day Harry returns the diamond figuring it’ll be his soon enough, and Nancy’s fresh as a daisy (read “sober”), demanding Harry accompany her into the desert to find the giant. He reluctantly obliges, thinking she’s finally gone round the bend, but then they spot the giant’s sphere and pull up to investigate. Beside herself with joy over not being insane, Nancy whoops and hollers, thereby attracting the giant who hauls her into his craft. Harry, after taking a few potshots at the big guy, then turns tail and leaves his wife to her fate. When he returns to town he makes up some story about Nancy’s whereabouts and prepares to run off with Honey, but then Nancy throws a monkey wrench into the works but turning up dazed but alive. Traumatized, Nancy is in no time doped up and imprisoned in her room in a state of utter helplessness while under psychiatric care, in other words the perfect time for Harry to administer a fatal overdose (a tactic charmingly suggested by his floozy).

During all of this mishegoss, the sheriff and Nancy’s gay Lurch of a butler retrace her path and locate the spaceship. There they find the Star of India amidst a hodgepodge of dime store-acquired “futuristic” gizmos and deduce that the alien wasn’t after Nancy, just her enormous bling-bling to serve as a power source for his sphere. They also figure out that while on board the spaceship she was exposed to high doses of some unknown radiation, and since this is the 1950’s you know what that means…

Finally working up the nerve to poison Nancy, Harry climbs the stairs, hypodermic at the ready, when he opens the door and finds Nancy has turned into — what else? — a gigantic mutant.

NOTE: we’re supposed to believe she’s about fifty feet tall, as per the flick’s title, but her body still somehow fits into her bedroom. But that’s unimportant since we never see any part of her while indoors except for the huge rubber hand that once represented the giant spaceman, now free of hair so it looks more feminine.

Now drugged out of her mind and chained to her bed, Nancy languishes while her husband continues to sloppily cavort with Honey. Then she has the decency to awaken, flail her huge hand about the place while bellowing “HARRY!!!” and demolish her house.

Still screaming for her unfaithful husband, Nancy strides in all her bikini-clad glory into town, rips the roof off of Tony’s — which coincidentally causes chunks of masonry to topple and crush Honey — grabs Harry (or more accurately the actor walks into the giant rubber hand and wraps its fingers about himself), hauls an obviously mis-scaled doll of him through the ceiling, drops him to his death, and then commits suicide by grabbing some live power cables (the same way out chosen in WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST). THE END.

If ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN sounds schlocky, it certainly is, but it only gets labeled as one of the all-time worst movies ever made for its admittedly horrendous special defects. The core story, space-giant notwithstanding, is a solid fifties B-picture about a fucked-up marriage, a heartless husband, and a wife’s pain over her spouse’s towering assholism. The three actors who bring life to the tawdry triangle give entertaining, professional performances in spite of a script that does everything short of shooting them in the head at point blank range to sabotage them, with Yvette Vickers owning the movie as a husband-stealing archetype.

Yvette Vickers, rockin' at the road house.

And the fifty-foot woman herself, Allison Hayes, was no slouch either, chewing the scenery as Nancy and having looks and attitude that remind me of Mariska Hargitay's earthy beauty with a touch of the porn-years Traci Lords poutiness.

I particularly like her in the scene where the looped Nancy pours her heart out to Harry and he feigns tenderness while undressing her. It’s a one-sided moment of tragic need where we see just how sad Nancy is, and how Harry couldn't possibly care less about her heartfelt entreaties for love. A small moment of realism in what is otherwise a soap opera with a couple of fantastic elements thrown in, the scene resonates to anyone who has ever been in a relationship where their lover is a taker who will just use them until they are all used up.

One-sided intimacy at its saddest.

It’s also a bit erotic, reminding me of the times I’ve returned home with a woman after some hard partying, and she wants nothing more than to go to sleep, trusting me to gently help her out of her clothes and usher her off to dreamland unmolested (we can always make osh-osh after she’s well-rested); the times that I’ve done this I quite enjoyed it, savoring the intimate trust of caring for someone who’s nearly helpless thanks to inebriation, and enjoying the slow, sensuous peeling off of clothing until all that’s left is curvy, womanly skin…

Sorry. I got a little distracted.

So now I see ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN in a totally new light, an understanding made possible by knowing all too well about alcoholic excesses and the agony of a broken heart. Sure it’s cheesy, but it’s a lot better than you’ve been led to believe.

TRUST YER BUNCHE!!!